SWX + amfphp = Swxamfphp = null;

Author:
sevenApril 3, 2007

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Aral Balkan has came up with a new data exchange format for Flash codenamed – SWX. The first beta was released few days ago, and it caused instant contraversy among people in remoting community. Since there are tons of various ways to do asynchronous data communication in Flash (LoadVars, XML, Remoting, JSON, SOAP, XML-RPC, and PHPObject) who actually needs new one? The idea behind it is actually pretty neat, and after some flaming, Patrick and Aral decided to work together (update: As Aral commented my post, it was April 1st joke. Dough!).

SWX uses PHON (PHP Object Notation) which uses native PHP data structure (less serialization and deserialization). Flash sends data to the server with loadMovie() trough POST and receives back SWF file which contains data in native SWF bytecode. After that you can access it just like it was regular data inside loaded movieClip, and you can display a determinate progress indicator on a service call.

I am really interested how things will go on with this project since this sounds like a great way to replace slow XML loading/parsing in Flash Lite apps.

Neven Jacmenović has been passionately involved with computers since late 80s, the age of Atari and Commodore Amiga. As one of internet industry pioneers in Croatia, since 90s, he has been involved in making of many award winning, innovative and successful online projects. He is an experienced full stack web developer, analyst and system engineer. In his spare time, Neven is transforming retro-futuristic passion into various golang, Adobe Flash and JavaScript/WebGL projects.

I can’t help but feel that there’s much more fun to be had in playing the game, experimenting, making mistakes even, than sitting, easily-hidden in the crowd, criticising, and nay-saying. Life would thus be a lot more serious and even less-inspiring if all observers were of this nature. You can sit and observe all you like, but if you’re not happy with what’s being made, i’m sure you have the skills to do something about it?? I would gladly pay to see that happen…